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Book Summary and Reviews of How We Can Win by Kimberly Jones

How We Can Win by Kimberly Jones

How We Can Win

Race, History and Changing the Money Game That's Rigged

by Kimberly Jones

  • Published:
  • Jan 2022, 192 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A breakdown of the economic and social injustices facing Black people and other marginalized citizens inspired by political activist Kimberly Jones' viral video, "How Can We Win."

"So if I played four hundred rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for fifty years, every time that I played, if you didn't like what I did, you got to burn it like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood, how can you win? How can you win?"

When Kimberly Jones declared these words amid the protests spurred by the murder of George Floyd, she gave a history lesson that in just over six minutes captured the economic struggles of Black people in America. Within days the video had been viewed by millions of people around the world, riveted by Jones's damning―and stunningly succinct―analysis of the enduring disparities Black Americans face.

In How We Can Win, Jones delves into the impacts of systemic racism and reveals how her formative years in Chicago gave birth to a lifelong devotion to justice. Here, in a vital expansion of her declaration, she calls for Reconstruction 2.0, a multilayered plan to reclaim economic and social restitutions―those restitutions promised with emancipation but blocked, again and again, for more than 150 years. And, most of all, Jones delivers strategies for how we can effect change as citizens and allies while nurturing ourselves―the most valuable asset we have―in the fight against a system that is still rigged.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"An impassioned and actionable call for leveling the playing field in America." ―Publishers Weekly

"Complete with guidelines for building financial and educational skill sets, Jones's book is a call-to-action that stresses the limitations that Black Americans have historically faced and offers a road map to equality." ―Booklist

"In a voice that is equal parts clear, unflinching and hopeful, Kimberly Jones fills in the missing pieces to the puzzle of Black American economic disparity. So much of the truth has been (purposely) hidden in the dark, but Kimberly brings the light. A must-read for everyone ready to fight for true equity." ―Layla F. Saad, New York Times & Sunday Times bestselling author of Me and White Supremacy

"Kimberly's message is as clarion in How We Can Win as it was when it erupted from her being in her now-famous viral video. There is a way forward in this rigged system, but it will take us knowing how we got here and working as a community to get out. Kimberly, like Mother Harriet, is saying, If we hear the dogs, keep going. If we want to get to freedom, keep going. This book is a liberatory map I desperately pray we all follow." ―Sonya Renee Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of The Body is Not An Apology

This information about How We Can Win was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Kimberly Jones

Kimberly Jones is an activist, former bookseller and current host of the Well-Read Black Girl book club's Atlanta chapter. She has directed feature films and cutting-edge diverse web series and has an overall deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. Jones is also co-author of the bestselling YA novels I'm Not Dying with You Tonight and Why We Fly.

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